We Bomb Because We’re Great; We’re Great, Therefore We Bomb

knowingly started two ten-year wars under false pretenses, Vietnam and Iraq.

started two wars via criminal diplomatic blunders, Korea and the Gulf War.

a long history of encouraging failed rebellions, probably including the Ukrainian and Baltic separatist movements after World War Two and East Germany in 1953; certainly Hungary in 1956, the Hmong in Laos and the Montagnards in Vietnam. The Kurds, the women of Afghanistan, Georgia in 2008, and now Russia’s LGBT citizens are just the latest. After we’ve had our Let’s Make the World Over in Our Image moment, we walk away and we abandon most of the people staked their lives on America, its word, its power, its honor and yes, its compassion and wisdom.

America is now pondering bombing Syria to do…what, exactly?

Show our credibility? We are dealing with a man who is responsible for the brutal deaths of tens of thousands of Syrians: the total death toll in that war is over 100,000 and while the rebels are also vicious and cruel, they lack the power of a state to be as vicious and cruel as the Assad regime. Assad is not going to be intimidated by “surgical strikes.” He is fighting for his life and also his vision of Syria. He may well also be by far the best choice for Syria. No one should have any illusion that Islamists or other religious dictators are any better than secular or quasi-secular dictators. It is a terrible fact that this is the only choice the Islamic world has been able to provide itself: the possibility of rationality, backed by the brute force of a state, or religious obscurantism, also backed by the brute force of a state. Nowhere is there popular commitment to adults, men and women together, reasoning out their problems, in public and in private, as equals, based on rational inquiry.

To demonstrate our credibility? Credibility is a matter not of what we do but of what we accomplish. Just what, exactly, does our government think it intends to accomplish?

The fact is that the United States is, as a great power, fundamentally in-creditable. Its word is not to be trusted, and neither is its judgment. And that is a terrible thing to have to write.